


memento mori

by fleurjaune



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst and Feels, Cancer, Complicated Relationships, Emilie Agreste Lives, F/M, Forgiveness, Future Character Death, Gen, I mean I'm erring on the side of caution with the character death tags, Mentioned Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Mentioned Gabriel Agreste, Self-Worth Issues, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27392077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: Nathalie never thought the end would be so mundane. Emilie tries to help.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nathalie Sancoeur, Emilie Agreste & Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	memento mori

The worst of it is that Emilie’s always scrupulously kind to her. Gabriel can’t meet her eyes for guilt, and Adrien’s still too furious to visit, but Emilie comes to her hospice bed and talks to her without any malice telling her what’s happening with them.

“Adrien will forgive you, you know. He’s starting to forgive his father-I can see it in his eyes.”

Nathalie took a sip of her water before speaking. “That’s good to hear. I never wanted their relationship to be ruined by this.”

“I know that. I know you tried. Who knows, if Gabriel had taken your advice and told Adrien what was going on maybe the heroes could have saved me much earlier.” Emilie tilted her head. “But then it is my husband and son, things could always have turned out worse too, this is probably as good an outcome as I could have hoped for.”

Nathalie gave the faintest shrug. Expressiveness didn’t seem worth the pain or possibility of dislodging something.

“Oh Nathalie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say I wanted this for you. Are you sure we shouldn’t broach this with the heroes again? ”

“There’s nothing they can do, you know that.”

Magic had cured Emilie because it had been Magic which nearly killed her. Magic had hurt Nathalie but the only extent it could be blamed for her impending death was that even after the Miraculous had been fixed she’d waved off anything wrong with her as due to it, so when after Ladybug had declared her free of any magically imposed damage, and she’d finally gone to a normal doctor her cancer had been found too late to do anything about it.

“I wish you’d let Gabriel and I send you to the US for that experimental treatment. It’s not like we can’t afford it.”

Nathalie looked away. She didn’t want their money and both of them knew that. Besides going through more pain on the off chance that _maybe_ she might get a little bit more life with more pain didn’t appeal to her at all.

“I know. I know, you’ve turned us down before.” Emilie sighed. “You’re not doing this out of some misplaced sense of guilt for what happened between you and Gabriel are you?”

“Nothing happened.” She said flatly. It's the truth. Emotionally she might have transgressed, but nothing had ever come of that. She hadn't let it.

“I know you didn’t do anything, but emotionally, I know it was difficult what I asked of him, of you through him, I understand that the two of you grew close. God, I’m not going to blame a dying women for _not_ seducing my husband when she was trying to save my life. ”

There’s a slightly performative tone in Emilie’s voice, and Nathalie wonders which of the two of them she’s really trying to convince. Which is possibly slightly unfair of her when Emilie’s clearly trying. Then again, life isn’t fair either, and Emilie’s got everything she wanted while Nathalie doesn’t even have her life for much longer.

She cuts Emilie off. “I just don’t want to go on another wild goose chase to save a life.”

Emilie pouted. “Technically the last one worked.”

That was a rather favourable reading of a situation where Emilie had been revived by the heroes because Hawkmoth and Mayura had failed, and their identities had been discovered, and thankfully Adrien loved his mother enough that rather than put her to rest, Ladybug had combed through her grimoire, and other writings the Guardian had given her and found a different way to save her.

Honestly they were lucky that Adrien had been conflicted enough about what his father had done, that the heroes had never revealed their identities. Though she’d probably have been released under supervision to die in peace she did appreciate that at least she was going to get to die without being handcuffed to the bed and without the infamy of anyone knowing what she’d done.

She probably owes that to Emilie too. She's always been better at convincing both Adrien and Gabriel of things than Nathalie ever was. Which makes sense given who she is to them and who Emilie is.

“At least let me bring Adrien next time. He’ll regret it if he never has a chance to say goodbye.”

“He’ll be fine. Just tell him I resigned or something.”

Adrien hates her. And before he hated her she was just the woman who delivered his father’s orders to him. He’s not going likely to go looking for her.

“I’m not doing that.” Emilie says. “We’ve kept enough secrets from him. Can you imagine how he’ll blow up when he finds out?”

“He might not find out.”

“He’s not stupid. He’ll look for you eventually if you never return to work. He’ll have questions for you.”

The latter at least might be true. She supposed that maybe Gabriel and Emilie might not be able to answer everything he wanted to know about the whole calamity.

“I know it’s hard to face his disappointment, but trust me, he won’t be able to keep his anger up for long _here_.”

When Nathalie failed to give her answer she wanted Emilie tried again. “You know he’s forgiven _me_ and I’m fairly certain that happened so quickly because he thought I’d suffered enough. He’ll forgive you too _._ ”

“He was angry at you?”

“Of course he was. It took him a little time to get there, but he was eventually, once he really considered that all of this was my idea, and that the whole situation was self-inflicted. I suppose we’re all lucky he didn’t disapprove of what I was doing with the Peacock in the first place.”

Nathalie took another sip of water. It was only half to put off having to reply to Emilie. Conversations were hard with how dry her throat was these days. “Should I ask the doctors to make sure I look extra pitiable when you bring him then?”

Emilie brightened at Nathalie’s implied surrender. Seeing her smile it made it impossible for Nathalie to withdraw it like she’d half wanted to.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly there is a non-zero chance Emilie & Gabriel do not listen to Nathalie at all and hatch some utterly ridiculous plan because it's them but...
> 
> (Look I'm in a wierd mood, and apparently cope with killing Emilie again maybe by probably killing Nathalie in another fic.)


End file.
